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Night Monster (Valiant Comics)
| Alignment = | Gender = | Birthplace = | Status = | Occupation = | Family = | Affiliations = | Creators = | First = ( ) | Last = }} The Night Monster, real name Anton Quigley, is an adversary to the superhero Shadowman. Originally he was Master Darque's teacher, but eventually the student surpassed the teacher. Years after his death at the hands of the original Shadowman, Maxim Saint James, he became a necromantic night monster of New Orleans. He was resurrected in that new form by Darque with the scraps from his army. Although Darque loathed Quigley for his attraction to his sister Sandria Darque, he still needed the knowledge he possessed. History Anton Quigley first appears in Shadowman #0, where he is hired by Master Darque to be his instructor in the necromantic arts, due to his claims of having learned how to raise the dead from a pact with Satan. With Master Darque's wellspring of necromantic energy to draw from, Quigley lives up to his claims. He comes to the attention of Maxim Saint James, the first Shadowman, when he attempts to cut the finger off of a prostitute named Connie in Ruby's bordello in Storyville, where he is interrupted by Maxim, Armstrong and the young Nettie. As Maxim heads home with Connie, Anton and his men ambush them; Maxim is beaten and left for dead, whilst Anton decapitates Connie and returns her head to Master Darque. When the aspiring necromancer is unable to revive the skull, Anton makes a bargain; Sandria Darque for his whore, in exchange for teaching the incantations he knows to Master Darque. Two nights later, a drunken Anton demands that Master Darque tell his sister to let him have sex with her. Having mastered the incantations that Anton taught him, Darque agrees and sends Anton on his way. When he attempts to kiss Sandria, he finds himself burned horribly by the necromantic energies contained in her body. Outraged, he stabs her and attempts to flee, only to be engaged in battle by Maxim Saint James. The fight ends when, at Nettie's instruction, Maxim allows Anton to stab him in the chest, triggering a surge of necromantic energy that kills Anton on the spot. At some point, Master Darque raises his former tutor as a zombie servant. Anton Quigley is one of an army of 100 zombies that attempts to kill Shadowman during the Chaos event, and is defeated. But not destroyed; as Shadowman #30 opens, Anton uses the ambient necromantic energy to fuel an incantation that melds the various zombies into a singular humanoid mass, assimilating himself as the creature's driving consciousness and becoming the Night Monster. In Shadowman #31, the Night Monster sets his goals for himself: destroy Shadowman in vengeance for his prior deaths, and seek freedom from Master Darque. To this end, he ambushes Shadowman at the home of Jack Boniface's girlfriend, and ultimately defeats Shadowman when he makes the mistake of grabbing the Night Monster's power-draining quills. In Shadowman #32, Jack's spirit explores the depths of the Night Monster's internal spiritscape, where he encounters the soul of Anton's father, who, alongside the master bokor Baron Zestrow, is working to try and destroy the Night Monster's evil. As Sandria Darque tracks down the Night Monster and engages him in battle, Jack feeds a mystical concoction of the Baron's to the half-dreaming spirit of Anton Quigley. Unable to handle the two-pronged assault, the Night Monster ultimately spews out Jack, the Baron and all of the goodly souls within him. In Shadowman #33, Shadowman faces off against the Night Monster again, with the two being equally matched now. Only the combined magical powers of Sandria and Baron Zestrow serve to end the battle, summoning "the Bayou Demon", a giant alligator, which attacks the Night Monster and drags it below the surface. Whilst Shadowman presumes that Anton Quigley is finally dead and buried, Baron Zestrow warns him that the gore staining the bayou's waters is the normal red of blood, whilst the Night Monster's ichor was a noxious pus-colored fluid. The Night Monster made no further appearances after that in the original 1990s run of Shadowman. Personality As a living man, Anton Quigley is a cruel hedonist, who regards all others as toys for his amusement, happily killing and maiming others to get what he wants. As the Night Monster, he is a more chaotic creature, constantly harangued by the chorus of souls living within him. He is brutish, but not without a certain guile. Powers and Abilities As a living human, Anton Quigley has knowledge of certain necromantic incantations, but he cannot use them without a source of necromantic power to tap into, such as Master Darque. He is quite wealthy and has several hired thugs at his command. As the Night Monster, Anton Quigley is superhumanly strong and durable. He can regenerate physical damage and has no vital organs to target, being an amalgamation of undead flesh, animated ash, and necromantic energy. Initially, he has the ability to drain necromantic energy through the quills on his back and can absorb both dead and living victims into his body, but he loses the absorption ability after the good souls within him are expelled - in this state, he becomes physically stronger. He can also project blasts of raw necromantic energy, which turns out to be harmless to Shadowman. Equipment None as the Night Monster. Notes As the Night Monster, he is said to be made of 50 good souls and 50 evil souls. Appearances Gallery Shadowman Vol 1 31.jpg Quotes References External links * Nightmonster at Comic Book Database Category:Shadowman Category:Necromancy Category:Superhuman Strength Category:Superhuman Durability Category:Regeneration Category:Energy Projection